Chapter 12 - Sex, Marriage, and Family

Cultural Regulation of Sexual Relations and Marriage

  • Rules and Customs: Every society maintains rules regarding sexual relations, marriage, family, and child-rearing. These are not merely "natural" but are cultural constructs vital for establishing social alliances, allocating resources, and assigning social obligations.

  • Wedding Rituals: Weddings serve as significant social events that underscore cultural values. They feature speech rituals, prescribed apparel, postures, gestures, food, and dance passed through generations.

    • Case Study: Gujarat, India: A Muslim bride on her Mehndi eve is decorated with henna dye. These designs, often hiding the groom’s name, symbolize love, fertility, and protection. The event is a woman-only gathering at the parents' home featuring singing and lovemaking instructions.

  • Sexual Freedom in the Trobriand Islands:

    • Children aged $7$ or $8$ begin erotic games and imitating adults.
    • By $11$ or $12$, they pursue partners in earnest, using magic spells and gifts.
    • Adolescents have freedom because they sleep apart from parents.
    • Intention to marry is announced when a couple appears together outside the man’s house in the morning.

  • Western Cultural Shift: Western cultures historically emphasized premarital abstinence (upholding it in conservative Christian and Muslim families), but late $20^{th}$-century practices have converged more toward Trobriant-style sexual experimentation.

Control and Regulation of Sexuality

  • Social Rationales: Rules regulate sexuality to manage social responsibilities in child-rearing and to prevent conflict from unregulated sexual competition.

  • Variability in Rules:

    • Pregnancy: Intercourse during pregnancy is taboo in some cultures but encouraged in others (believed to promote fetal growth).
    • Same-Sex Relations: Attitudes range from indifference (no special terms) to prescription. In Papua New Guinea, male-to-male acts are part of initiation rituals to build strength against the "debilitating effects" of adult heterosexual intercourse.
    • Legal Changes: India decriminalized homosexuality in $2009$. Argentina granted the first Latin American same-sex marriage license in $2009$.

  • Adultery and Religious Law:

    • Traditionally, Jews, Christians, and Muslims viewed adultery as punishable by death (e.g., stoning as described in Deuteronomy $22:24$).
    • Modern Context: In $2010$, a Taliban-controlled village in Afghanistan carried out a public stoning of a $23$-year-old woman and her $28$-year-old lover.

  • Impact on HIV/AIDS Statistics: Religious and cultural prohibitions on sexual activity correlate with lower infection rates in some areas.

    • Muslim countries in Northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) report infection rates of approximately $0.1\%$.
    • In contrast, non-Muslim states in sub-Saharan Africa show higher rates: South Africa ($17\%$), Botswana ($25\%$), and Swaziland ($26\%$).

The Incest Taboo and Kinship Regulations

  • Definition of Marriage: A culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that establishes rights and obligations regarding sex, labor, property, child-rearing, and status.

  • The Incest Taboo: This is a prohibition against marriage or sexual intercourse between people considered too closely related.

    • Inbreeding Theory: While inbreeding can lead to genetic defects, it also quickly eliminates detrimental genes. Research shows the risk of birth defects for first-cousin offspring is about 1.7×10−21.7 \times 10^{-2} to 2.8×10−22.8 \times 10^{-2} above background risk ($1.7\%$ to $2.8\%$).
    • Historical Exceptions: Inca rulers in Peru and Egyptian emperors practiced sibling/half-sibling marriage to maintain divine royal status.

  • Endogamy and Exogamy:

    • Endogamy: Marriage within a particular group (Greek endon — "within").
    • Exogamy: Marriage outside a particular group (Greek exo — "outside").
    • Case Study: British Pakistanis: Research by Adam Kuper notes higher rates of first-cousin marriage among British Pakistanis ($50\%+$) compared to the immigrant generation ($33\%$) due to immigration regulations requiring British citizenship for entry.

Forms of Marriage

  • Monogamy: Both partners have only one spouse. This is the only legally recognized form in North America and Europe. Serial Monogamy occurs when individuals marry partners in succession after divorce.
  • Polygamy: One individual having multiple spouses.
    • Polygyny: One man with multiple wives. Favored in $80\%$ to $85\%$ of world cultures, particularly where women do the bulk of cultivation (wealth-generating) or where male combat mortality is high.
    • Polyandry: One woman with multiple husbands. Extremely rare (fewer than $12$ societies).
    • Fraternal Polyandry in Tibet: Brothers marry one woman to keep limited land from being subdivided and to manage a mixed economy of farming, herding, and trading.
  • Group Marriage: Multiple men and women have sexual access to each other (e.g., Inupiat Eskimo nuliaqatigiit or "spouse exchange" for mutual aid).

Marriage as Economic Exchange and Choice

  • Arranged Marriages: Viewed as a transfer of rights between families rather than a personal whim.

    • Indian Case Study (Serena Nanda): Arranged marriages depend on caste, social class, and the family's reputation. Qualities like gossip-avoidance and "forwardness" (e.g., being seen alone on a bus) can ruin a girl's prospects.

  • Economic Exchanges:

    • Bridewealth (Bride-price): Payments to the bride's kin to compensate for the loss of her labor and offspring.
    • Bride Service: The groom works for the bride's family for a set period.
    • Dowry: A woman's share of parental property given at marriage. It ensures her support in widowhood and allows women to compete for desirable husbands.

Family and Household Structures

  • Family: Two or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption.
  • Household: A domestic unit of one or more people living in the same residence. Not always synonymous with family (e.g., royal residences including servants).
  • Family Types:
    • Conjugal Family: Formed on marital ties.
    • Consanguineal Family: Consists of related women, their brothers, and offspring (e.g., Mosuo of China, Tory Islanders of Ireland).
    • Nuclear Family: One or two parents and dependent offspring. Common in industrial societies requiring mobility and harsh environments (e.g., Inuit).
    • Extended Family: Two or more closely related nuclear families clustered together. Standard in horticultural, agricultural, and pastoral societies (e.g., Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan).

Residence Patterns

  • Patrilocal: Couple lives with the husband's father. Common in societies with intensive agriculture and male authority.
  • Matrilocal: Couple lives with the wife's mother. Common in horticultural societies where women control land access (e.g., Hopi).
  • Avunculocal: Couple lives with the husband's mother's brother.
  • Neolocal: Couple forms a separate household away from parents (emphasizing nuclear family independence in industrial societies).
  • Ambilocal: Couple can join either family based on where resources are better (common among foragers).

Globalization and Technology

  • Technology: Internet dating and Indian matrimonial websites allow for arranged marriages via video profiles. Digital communication allows for clandestine relationships across caste or religious lines.
  • New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs): In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy mean a child can effectively have $5$ parents (egg donor, sperm donor, birth parents, surrogate, and social parents).
  • Migration: China has $260,000,000$ internal migrant workers living in single-generation factory dormitories, a sharp contrast to the traditional multigenerational extended family.